Friday morning-Les Invalides & Eiffel Tower

We awoke to a beautiful, sunny day! YEAH! We had to get ready by lamplight in the bathroom as I had blown a fuse the night before with the hairdryer! :{ Mark was very ingenious in finding a lamp with a long enough cord to reach the kitchen and give us light!

We took the Metro over to Les Invalides and enjoyed the Soldiers Chapel (have video, no pictures) and Napoleons Tomb. We had a ton last time of the tomb itself, but I forgot to take one this time. We found the 'Musee des Plans Reliefs" on the very tip top floor of the East Wing. (Spence and I were out of breath after the climb! We are so out of shape!) Mark loves models of places and cool buildings. This has 17th- and 18th- Century models of French cities. Some were very cool. You could figure out the best way to defend the city and such. I believe it was a model of Mont-Saint-Michel that was really cool! I swear it reminded me of Hogwarts! It is basically just this tiny island in which this entire walled city encompasses. It just seems to go Up and Up and at the very top is the Abbey. It was really very interesting!

After we took the elevator down... :)... we walked over into the Rue Cler neighborhood that we stayed at in 2004. We showed Mark the lovely little church ,St. Jeans, that Spencer had found in his wanderings last time. We sat on the steps and chatted about what life would be like living in Paris. These boys always discuss living abroad. It would be quite an adventure!

We showed Mark our little Bed and Breakfast we stayed at, "Hotel du Champ de Mars" and Doug and Theresa/our favorite little Creperie in the Rue Cler Street Market. Then we continued on just a few more blocks to the Eiffel Tower. We got some really pretty shots, but chose to walk straight through the large mass of people. Even as we walked through, they made an announcement that one of the lifts would be closed for awhile. It was very warm (doesn't that sound wonderful!!), so we got some ice cream. It was fun to eat and watch all of these tourists with tour groups having to stand in these horribly, long lines. Not just for the Eiffel Tower, but for the boats on the Seine. We really enjoyed just planning everything ourselves and going where and when we wanted to!

At this point, we looked at a few souvenier shops and we started to get some ideas of what we wanted to get the kids. Next, we went to an "Asian and Oriental Art Museum" (I know it has a cool name, but I can't think of it). It was really neat, but I think at this point each of us thought his/her feet were going to fall off! Spence and I kept finding each other in different rooms and finding the best seats to enjoy our views. Thank goodness for the Metro!! more later...